Friday Confessions Part Two

I've been sick with some sort of nasty head congestion/sore throat for most of the week and haven't done one bit of working out since volleyball on Tuesday night.

This makes me feel lazy. (And it doesn't leave me with a ton to blog about.)

But, it's supposed to be in the 60's this weekend in DC. I'm hoping I feel up to a bike ride at some point. Got to take advantage of the warm days when I can.

In light of not having anything workout-wise to share, I thought I'd share some more Friday confessions.

• My SmartTrip card (the card you need to ride the metro in DC) disappeared Tuesday night after my volleyball game. I called Metro to report it, and apparently some loser had picked it up and been using it through out the subway system. Metro froze the card account and can transfer the remaining balance on to my new card. Hope you enjoyed your free ride while it lasted, jerk.


• I have not been sleeping well this week. Monday night I tossed and turned in bed for hours. I think I finally passed out around 2 a.m.


• I tend to get realllll cranky when I don't get enough sleep.


• Our volleyball team dropped from first place to second place in the standings this week. Bummer.


• I lost power at my house this morning for no reason other than it was raining a little. It's hard to work from home without the power and the Internet so I had to go into the office. Getting ready in the dark is not fun, but I managed to find clothes that matched in my closet. So I'll count that as a victory.


• I'm starting to get really antsy for summer. I'm glad we're supposed to have nice weather this weekend. I'm so over the rain and the cold winter days.


• I bought a wetsuit yesterday. It was on crazy sale and it was actually cheaper for me to buy this one than to rent a wetsuit for the two tri's I have coming up this spring. Buying a wetsuit makes this whole triathlon thing seem very real.

What are your confessions for the week?

Volleyball Slump

Quick note about the mobile version of my site: I know not many of you access my site through the mobile version, but for those of you who do, I've had to disable it for a while because some of the mobile coding is interfering with my comments plugin. I'm working to figure out if there's anything I can do about it and how to resolve the problem, but for now, the only thing that works is disabling the mobile site. Sorry guys! Hoping to have a better solution soon!

Last night my volleyball team struggled a little bit in our games and we ended up finishing the night 2-2, after beating a really fundamentally sound team and then losing to a scrappy team.

Our league plays a little bit different than most. Instead of playing three games against one team, we play two games against two different teams round-robin style. We also only play until 17 to keep the games moving. It's definitely a little bit untraditional and it's taken me a while to adjust, but it's kind of fun playing two different teams each week.

The last couple of weeks we've been finishing 3-1 on the night and as a result had claimed the top spot in the standings.

I'm sure after last night, we'll drop though.

Our team is far from a group of super stars, but we are pretty competitive, and it's always frustrating to lose games you know you have the skill and talent to win.

I'm the kind of person who comes home and ruminates on everything that I did wrong in the games. Every missed dig or every misplayed set.

Don't worry, I don't just focus on the negative. In one game I did serve for 12 points in a row and had a few clutch digs, but I learn more from where I messed up.

I also feel the need to analyze the entire game with people. You know how when you just finish a great run (or a crappy run) and you just want to talk about it for a while. Yea, I'm like that with team sports too. Emily and I probably talked about the game for a solid 40 minutes last night.

Next week it looks like we'll be facing some stiff competition, but I'm hoping we can rebound and get a couple more wins.

My First Triathlon Training Plan

Wow, putting together a training plan that covers a 10 mile race in April, a sprint tri in May and an Olympic tri in June that still leaves time for things like my volleyball and softball leagues is much, much harder than I expected.

In fact, it took me pretty much the entire afternoon while I was home yesterday.

I wasn't sure how to approach it and with training dates that didn't line up nicely it was challenging.

• Training for the 10 miler needed to start in the middle of February.
• Training for the sprint needed to start at the end of Feb.
• Training for the Oly needed to start at the end of March.

I looked at a ton of different running and tri training plans, and finally came up with a hybrid that I think will work.

End Feb./beginning of March

If you're interested in seeing the full training plan, shoot me an email and I can share the Google calendar with you.

I selected a 10-miler training program from Runner's World that only has you running three days. That leaves four days for cross-training or possible rest. In the beginning of my training the emphasis will be on running to get me ready for the 10 miler. I'll bike and swim on the cross-training days to build a solid base.

Then once my 10 miler is over in April, the training plan shifts focus to more tri-centric workouts. Running times get shorter while swim and bike times increase. And bricks will be added to the plan on a more regular basis.

Looking at the training plan seems a little overwhelming at times, but I think mixing it up with swimming and biking will keep things from getting stale.

When I'm training for road races, I tend to run into the problem of getting bored or burnt out half way through training, I'm hoping a plan with this much variety prevents that from happening.

But it will certainly be a test of my time management skills. The pools around here don't open early enough for me to swim before work, and getting to bike trails takes time, but I'm confident I'll be able to make it work. it won't be as easy as slipping on my shoes and heading out for a run, but I'll get it done.

Triathletes, how do you make time to fit in all your training?